Some of you people need your heads examined... You cannot make up your own rules and then speak with authority about a name and a language you DO NOT KNOW! The name is spelled with an e-fada AND an i-fada (an Irish accent which elongates the vowel sound), so it is AY sound not "I"...and it is definitely NOT pronounced lish but leesh because the i-fada is an ee sound. And the S is pronounced sh. Ailis or Éilís or Eilís are the original spellings and variants of the name "as Gaeilge" or "in Irish language". All of these other spellings are derivatives and Anglo or American variants on an Irish name! So, I suppose you can (and will) pronounce it however the hell you want, but please stop saying with authority how the name SHOULD be pronounced without going to its original culture and language. Study some Irish (Gaeilge pronounced Gwayel-Gah) please!
This is one of the names that look much better than they sound.Ailís looks beautiful, but it sounds like AY-lish (I cannot confirm the AY-leesh pronunciation that this site gives. I know several and they all say AY-lish) and AY-lish sounds like an adjective for something that is gross and slimy. Kind of like "Don't touch that eel, it's AY-lish".I appreciate its history but the sound isn't nice, I much prefer Alice.I have seen Ailish and Aylish as anglicizations which both look trendy and awful to me (Aylish is even worse than Ailish).If you want to use it, stick with Ailís.
― Anonymous User 5/5/2021
1
Sorry, when I wrote earlier that it is pronounced AY-lish I was getting it confused with Ailis.Ailis is Scottish and pronounced AY-lish. Ailís is Irish and pronounced AY-leesh.
― Anonymous User 3/10/2022
3
It looks really beautiful, but "AY-leesh" doesn't sound nice to me at all, a bit like "a leash".
It sounds a little incomplete to me, like there should be another syllable - I can't really say why. I like the way it looks better than the actual pronunciation.